About Me

Friday, September 28, 2012

This is the story of the special herd saved by a caring individual, who found another caring individual who knew just what to do to get this herd home. This story is nothing short of a miracle, and has provided me so much hope for the future of all of us. (Our girl Sara is pictured here resting her head on a friend)

Paint
horses are mystical creatures surrounded with spirit, and each one has as much
mystique as the divinely designed flawlessness in the markings that make them
each so distinctive. I now own a Paint; she was one of a herd of nineteen
others, mostly Paints like herself, that I played a part in rescuing this past
summer. I witnessed proof of compassionate
humanity existing among us as I saw hundreds of friends looking at posts of
pictures of the almost forgotten ill fated herd on Facebook. This group grew to
become an unstoppable force of hopeful humanitarians that magically
orchestrated a new and hopeful reality for these horses.

I took an enormous leap of faith and picked
the mare out of a lineup of photos. I couldn’t stop going to her picture and
looking at the side view of her face and eye. It looked like there was a
beautiful painting of a swan on her right side and a dragon with a full wing
span on the left. Up by the top of her neck near her ear was a tiny picture of
a horse that looked like an Egyptian cave drawing I thought.

Her
eyes were what really struck me though.They had bold expression in them and though you could see the white,
like so many paints, it was not like a mistrusting eye that makes a person
leery of a horse, it seemed more like an intelligent eye that could look right
into your soul. Her eye was one that could soften you, explain your fears, your
pain, or anything that deep kind eye needed to teach you at the exact moment
you needed to learn the lesson. That eye could demonstrate kindness, bring you warmth,
understanding, and an eye like hers could even heal you. I saw in her something
that I desired, and although initially I knew that I would be rescuing her, I
also knew with great faith and clarity that she would come into my life to
salvage me, to awaken me, to heal me, but most importantly to teach me.

The
herd, which had learned to move like an easy river over rock, and sludge, and
any further difficult terrain put before them, was in trouble. There were
nineteen horses all total, and each had been fattened up, and housed drug free
for the 90 day waiting period needed for a kill buyer to ship them alive to
Canada and then onward overseas to countries where eating horse meat was now a
popular delicacy enjoyed often by patrons of fancy European restaurants.

The
herd’s original owner was a dying woman who was given an ultimatum by her
husband. She had spent years laboriously developing this herd of beautiful
breeding stock which she had enjoyed and loved like her very own children. They
each had registration papers and pedigrees miles long that seemed to tell the
story of a proud woman who could boastfully talk about the horses she owned and
bred for pleasure. When she was weak and ailing, the resentment her husband
felt from the time lost to her prized horses, coupled with the expense of
taking care of an entire herd of horses, had overtaken him enough that he
forced her to sell the last facade of joy in her life to a single buyer. Sadly,
the rare buyer buys herds of beautiful horses, so they were sold to a horse dealer,
a kill buyer we call them in the industry, who would prepare them to be sold
for top dollar by the pound for overseas slaughter, a fast growing and
lucrative business in these hard economic times.

In our
country, horses are a national treasure that have enriched our history so much
that we can hardly even imagine the horrors that go on, and we often choose not
to acknowledge these misfortunes as horses are shipped out of our country where
they can be consumed in cultures that accept them as food. I have been blessed
to know enough of horses personally to believe that whenever possible, they
should be given a chance at the best life we can offer them. Sadly for this herd, the house of cards they
had fallen victim to, had finally come down, and they were no longer safe from
the harsh reality that existing here on earth can sometimes bring.

The
herd knew nothing of their impending doom as they moved quietly through a
simple life that had defined them for so long. They worked cooperatively as one
pack and no horse among them was either the leader or the follower. They had
learned to live together without competition, they were a team, and they had learned
to move as one strong entity. They shared space, food, and water; they groomed
each other, and slept outside together under trees or shelters that may or may
not have been provided them by the humans who were to care for them. They had
developed love and affection for one another over years of shared experiences,
and each individual in no way felt that any of the others were separate from
them. Bound for slaughter, though they had no way of knowing, they had formed a
pact that together they were safe, but separate they were uncertain.

The
hired driver of the goose neck horse trailer pulled into the kill buyers’
driveway and loaded the first ones she could catch. She immediately took note
as to how magnificent they were, and when she was handed the appropriate
paperwork for slaughter bound horses, something in her drove her to plead with
the kill buyer. Maybe it was the colorful herds’ uniqueness and oneness that
had saved them, and somewhere buried just below the surface of the kill buyers
own humanity was enough consideration to impel him to give her permission to
sell them, if she did it quickly enough, and he received his money. Facebook
lit up as the message of desperation and hope was passed along from the shipper
to her friend who runs a Michigan horse rescue who quickly moved and decided it
was right, as animal rescuers know all too well, to get the word out about this
herd and their dire story as this was their only and last hope.

I see
countless horse’s faces every day on Facebook that need or are looking for
homes, they all have a story in their eyes and it all seems so hopeless. When
the first post caught my eye, I admit ashamedly that I glazed over it thinking
that I would share it but it would end there. There are so many dismal pictures
plastered over my wall that I am overwhelmed by them all, thinking that I
cannot possibly do anything to stop this madness of homeless horse after
homeless horse. “Too many”, I thought with a head shake. “But I will pass the
word along anyway.”

My
friend who owns the rescue did not share my languid attitude at all and instead
stressed the urgency of the looming situation at every turn and enough times
that I could no longer ignore her pleas. “These horses have until Friday to
live, and there are many more where these came from.” the post read. There was
a photo of a beautiful bay gelding that caught my eye immediately. He was a
thick and sturdy looking quarter horse, who somehow was thrown into the mix of
breeding mares.

“How on
earth did this guy get here?” I thought as I looked at his picture, which
showed his confident demeanor and strong stance, “He looks like a riding horse,
not a brood mare.” I thought out loud.

As a
riding school owner I was in need of a lesson horse perhaps, or even a horse I
can lease out to one of my clients. We can train any horse if they are level
headed enough and this was a robust, handsome quarter horse, so I inquired.
When I spoke to the driver she had a strong voice with heart and mileage behind
it. She was a trainer too and she informed me that this horse was very
sensitive to leg aids and probably could not have a beginner rider on him.

I really appreciated her honesty, and thought
that even though she only had a few days to home this group, she was not going
to sell him to the wrong home. So he
was not to be my horse, but now the seed was planted that I should continue the
search for the right horse. I watched facebook all night after that and noticed
that there were some takers on this first group. “If we get this first group
homes,” my friend from the rescue posted, “We can get the next group homes and
keep on going.”

The
first group of four was sold before the Friday deadline. It seemed like a
miracle as we all held our breath and looked at the daily reminders and the
comments from onlookers. There were plenty of “I wish I had more room”ers and “I wish I had the money”ers, and an
abundance of oohers and aahers, but the actual buyers, those willing to take a
leap of faith and listen to instinct and intuition from just a cell phone
picture, those were the people we needed to find, and the rescue farm owner
knew that the only way this herd would survive was to share, share, and share
some more.

The
next group of four was picked up by Monday and we were off to the races yet
again to find the next batch of would be owners for them. There was a handsome
chestnut gelding in this bunch that interested me but he was described as too
green for my needs, and the others were not exactly right either. One by one we
shared and shared the pictures of the innocent faces of these kind horses, and
had to watch with our breath held as the owner of the Michigan rescue stuck the
neck of her rescue efforts out to save them, pleading with the Facebook
community to share and repost so everyone could see them. She actually had
people asking her why they weren’t free horses, questioning her integrity, and
the integrity of the rescue, leading her to pose the question “What is a horse
rescue?” and “Who qualifies as a recue horse?”

I
watched in anguish as she fought for her cause as she so often does, but knew
that my horse was not in this second group. Some of my fellow trainer friends
were getting agitated on my shared posts saying things like, “Come on people!
These horses deserve homes, they deserve a chance.” Someone even reminded us
all that the famous Snowman was once a rescue horse and he was bought for $200
and went on to become one of the greatest show jumping legends of all time.

“One of
these could be the next Snowman”, she pleaded, which lead one of our peers, a
professional horseman within the hunter jumper community to step up and become
a Facebook hero when he bought the chestnut gelding who had such an innocence
about him that we could hardly stand waiting to see if he had to be shipped to
a deadly fate. All four were sold by Friday and the kill buyer got his cash in
hand late that afternoon. I heard a collective cheer seemingly through the
vibration of my laptop on Facebook that night, and I cried for the horses that
had no idea they were in danger, no idea that tonight they had been saved.

Pleased
with his fast money, he told the shipper to take the last group of horses in
their entirety and sell them. She was given two weeks this time. When she
arrived there, she put as many in her trailer as she could catch and made a few
trips. She had to leave two behind because one was a stallion who was too wild
and unruly to load into the trailer, and the other one was so lame and elderly
that she could hardly stand up any longer.

Her
heart was broken as she drove away unable to keep her promise to the herd. When
she got the horses to her farm she tied them all to a hitching post to bathe
them and assess the situation. Some of the horses were very rarely handled by
people and were frightened. One horse was so afraid that she tried to break
loose from the holding area and tragically slipped, fell, and broke her neck.
The horse had to be destroyed the old fashioned way with a bullet at the scene
with the whole herd looking on. The kill buyer insisted that the shipper pay
for the dead horse, so money had to be added to the prices of the last group in
order to make up for the one that had died.

It was
to her the worst most heartless experience of her life, and although she was
doing the best she could and felt called to do the work, she could not help but
feel the enormity of the tragedy which had unfolded before her. Unfortunately she
was not a Facebook user, and she had no idea of the rally that was going on
behalf of the herd.She had no idea that
people across nations were now rooting for them, and the driving force behind
finding the members each homes had become virtually unstoppable.

The
powerful determination of Facebookians far and wide would see nothing but a
happy ending to this story. With the rescue owner at the helm of the motion to
push through, the wall post read, “Slaughter Bound herd in Michigan in need of
homes now!” We all shared, and shared again the message of impending doom each
day, posting the album of the individual pictures of each horse like “wanted”
signs all over our walls and the walls of our friends, and pretty soon we had
roughly a thousand onlookers behind us.

The
final and largest batch was posted on a Friday. I remember getting very
restless to see them and knowing that my horse was probably among this last
group of horses. I recall checking my facebook page, my friends’ personal page,
and her rescue’s page several times that day, and when the pictures finally
came out I saw my Sara. She was called “Honey” because her papers said “Honey
Dus Print”. I looked at her photo for a long, long time. People were making
comments beside her picture saying things like, “This is my pick.” “Save this
one for me.”, and, “This is my dream horse can I have her?”

Honey Dus Print

I said
nothing, made not one comment or even a “like”, as I did not want to bring any
more attention to the photographs of the horse I knew would be my own. I
remember calling my husband on the phone at work and asking him to look at her
photo. “She’s nice.” he said with indifference behind his tone.

Saturday and Sunday,
I looked at the photo several times, and looked deeply into the one showing eye
of the horse I had already named Sara after my guardian angel. I could not stop thinking about her. “She is
not a beginner horse you know.” my pragmatic husband said with a coolness in
his voice. “If we are going to buy a horse Rhonda,” he said sensibly, “We
really need a horse that is useful to us right away.” I stayed quiet because I
knew he was not wrong about any of it, his reasons were realistic, and
practical, but I couldn’t stop staring at her photograph. More and more
comments were lining up underneath her photo as the hours went on.

“SLAUGHTER
BOUND HERD IN DANGER AND IN NO WAY SAFE!!!” The haunting description read, “We
have only two weeks to sell the rest of them or they WILL get shipped.” The
photo share caption threatened and I shuddered to imagine that beautiful,
perfect mare on a trailer heading to a holding pen, and eventually on to an
airplane, and then perhaps countless more dangerous holding pens preparing her
for a devastating fate. It was her journey that worried me the most, and I
thought about the immeasurable number of other beautiful horses who never even get
the chance to be seen on facebook.

I
stared at her photograph all night until it seemed that I knew her. The vibrant
colors on her sides seemed to blend now, morphing into one large painting of another
perfect horse losing hope.

No one had taken any of them in yet and it was Monday
morning. “Two weeks from last Friday comes so fast.” I thought out loud.
“Someone else would have bought her already if she was not meant to be ours.” I
convinced myself. I was folding laundry and feeling so anxious about her and in
a moment of hopeful panic I picked up the phone and dialed the number of the
shipper who had stumbled upon the ill fated herd. I felt I could trust her
because she had been so very forthright with me when I called about the bay
gelding from the first group.

If she
hadn’t have answered the phone I would have questioned myself and might not
have attempted another call. She told me that she had never seen such a
horrible scene, and that she would never do anything like this again, as she was
affected so profoundly that she would never be the same. I remember thinking with
great clarity and conviction that she was being utilized as an angel, and how
through the wreckage and the heartache she could not see this yet.

I
remember trying to comfort her in vane as she shared with me the story about
the dying woman who had owned this herd, and how she could never forgive
herself if she didn’t see this herd through, and finally she told me quietly
about the two whom she had to leave behind. Tears streamed down my face as I listened
and empathically felt her pain, noticing the words weakening as they came from
her once strong voice which now cracked as she spoke to me.

My
reply felt cold but I was honest. “I don’t think I can do it because she is not
exactly what we need.” Then with a softening voice I told the truth, “There is
something about her picture though that I just can’t shake.” I spoke with hope
in my voice, “I promise you,” I said with sincerity, “I will call my husband
and call you right back if I can take her.” As I hung up the phone I was
confident that she would never expect a call back from me, and I also knew for
certain that I had only a moment to get my husband on the phone.

I
contemplated the uncertainty of his answer and knew that I had to be careful.
But I also knew that my husband understands how fate and intuition play a large
role in our lives way more than I ever give him credit for, so I spoke from my
heart. I spoke of my experience on the phone with the woman and told him the
story she had shared with me. He was quiet but he knew that we had to do what
was right by this mare. He too had gone back to her picture several times,
though he had been much more discreet about it. “Let’s get her.” He said in a
calm strong voice. I sat stunned for a
moment, “Go ahead and call her back.” He repeated, noting my breathless
silence.

I am
not sure if I even said goodbye to him, but I do remember that I couldn’t hang
up the phone and redial fast enough. My hand fumbled recklessly on the keys
once or twice. I then had to concentrate
and redial the number more slowly as I was not going to make an untimely
mistake in dialing it again when I had only moments to spare.

I anxiously
asked how to pay for her.I could feel
my heart beating strongly against my chest as I momentarily assessed the
impulsivity of the act I was about to embark on. Nevertheless, when she sent me
to her PayPal account, I spared not even a minute before making the transfer,
and within moments she was ours.

I pensively
sat on the bed where I had made the calls, sitting precisely where I had spent
hours looking at her photo and the photo of the herd together so many times,
and recognized that I had just made a profound and significant decision for all
of us. Chills blew through me as I connected gratefully with the guidance that
I had listened to, and I knew, without any evidence of remorse, that I had done
the right thing and that Sara was finally coming home.

I proudly
posted a comment under the beautiful photo showing our Honey, my Sara, declaring
that she was sold and confirming to all of the onlookers that we had bought
her. A sudden and immediate barrage of posts flooded the photograph. There were
now 30 or 40 comments underneath her picture congratulating me on our new
horse. I felt completely uncertain of what journey lay before me, but I knew
one thing, at that instant I knew that I could breathe again because she was
safe. I had never felt so much relief, and now I could wait for her safe
arrival, and deal with the next chapter of our journey as it came, knowing with
great faith that I had listened to the right voice this time. I was now able to
continue to help find homes for the others, as I was now able to begin to lead
by example.

All of the horses found homes and followed suit after Sara
was sold. No horse that was taken to the shelter of the kind shippers’ barn
would have to endure a grueling slaughter journey. The final horse that
remained from the herd did not find a home within the strict time frame. She
was an older mare who was plainer looking than the others, and barely broke,
but she was slow and kind. An anonymous donor from our group of faithful Facebook
friends, found it in their heart to pay for the last and final horse so that
the shipper could put the payments behind her, on time, and begin to heal
herself as she now had the occasion to find the perfect home for this final
mare, which she did just a couple of weeks after the deadline.

The
more time I spend with our Sara, the more that I appreciate how the herd acted
as one. I think about the parallels of the work we all did together that was
much like the work of the herd, and how really simple our place and purpose is
as individuals. We are here to learn that we are all more the same than we are
different; That when the universe asks us to step up, we can either choose to disregard
the call, or we can become a powerful force that rallies around each other
sharing the simple message before us, because after all we do recognize the
idea that as one we are just one, but as a working herd we are the sum of our
whole.

Together,
we witnessed all of the posting and sharing that began with one and multiplied
into a flock of many who had just one goal in mind. The goal, though it seemed
to be as simple as the saving of some horses, was about the humanity that binds
us together and the hope of people who proudly want to proclaim that love
always wins. The herd was nothing but a reminder of the lesson, and living with
the blessing that is Sara in my everyday life, I am reminded of the power of
all of us together for one purpose, as we are as strong or as weak as the herd
that was built out of a dream of one, which went on to become a vision of hope
for so many.

When we
glance back at the tragedy of the misbegotten herd, separated but bound as a
whole, living forever within each of us who were lucky enough to be touched by
this story that we all chose generously and collectively to share, we can hear
a quiet undertone that reminds each of us that wherever we look, we will always
find love seamlessly within one great herd moving together steadily throughout
our lives.

If you would like to
help rescued horses like Sara who are still looking for permanent placement,
sponsorship adoption, and donations, please visit www.sandstonefarm.info